Tesla Shows Roadster With SpaceX Thrusters, Targets 2028 Production, Names No Price

Tesla finally showed its next-generation Roadster on Thursday night, Oct. 15, nearly nine years after it first took deposits for the car.

The livestreamed event ran from a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, near Waco. It began at 8:55 p.m. ET.

Elon Musk set the tone early. "You're going to see some crazy stuff tonight," he said, promising "the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world's best car company and the world's best rocket company."

What the demo showed

A white Roadster raced up a huge curved ramp until it was upside down. It then vaulted off, flipped in mid-air, hovered briefly and landed on the pavement. "Well, it worked," Musk said afterward. "Flying cars are real," added Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering.

TechCrunch reported that the car also used its thrusters to hop over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Tesla Semi, Model Y and Model 3 while moving.

Moravy said the car uses 10 thrusters fed by 600 liters of compressed air, and that the tank can be recharged. Tesla said on X that every usable void in the car is packed with carbon-fiber overwrapped pressure vessels. TechCrunch noted that this is the type of vessel that has been at the root of multiple SpaceX rocket explosions.

A separate recorded run shown on screen put 0 to 60 mph at 0.81 seconds. Tesla's timer also clocked the sub-one-second run live, which Moravy demonstrated for the audience.

Trims, deposits and timeline

Musk said Tesla will build the car in 2028. He did not announce a price.

Tesla listed three trims:

• Performance: described as road ready, two seats.
• Thrust: race ready, two seats, with rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters.
• Rocket: air ready, one seat, with 10 cold-gas thrusters around the car. It is invite only.

All three are rated at about 300 miles of range and speeds above 230 mph.

Tesla's website is taking reservations at $50,000 for Performance and $250,000 for Thrust. Business Insider reported the Performance deposit is structured as $5,000 up front with $45,000 due 10 days later.

The 2017 prototype was pitched at $200,000, with a $250,000 Founders Series, a 620-mile range, a 1.9-second 0-60 time and deliveries starting in 2020. Tesla has delivered no second-generation Roadster. In November 2025 it moved production to 2027 or 2028.

This week's event was itself rescheduled. Tesla set it for Oct. 1 and called it off on Sept. 28, citing weather and saying the show can only be held outdoors. Electrek counts at least six production delays and seven unveil dates.

The street-legal question

An audience member asked whether the car is street legal. Musk answered: "Depends on your street. It'll be a viable car."

Business Insider observed that the car appears to have no side-view mirrors, which raises the question of how it meets federal standards. It also appears to use mechanical door latches rather than Tesla's usual electronic ones.

Musk has been upfront that safety is not the design priority. "If safety is your number one goal, do not buy the Roadster," he said on a podcast earlier this year. He added that Tesla would aspire not to kill anyone in it. On Thursday he said the Roadster will be the only Tesla meant to be driven manually and is not "necessarily a safety-optimized car."

Before the event, Electrek reported that the demo had been scaled back from flying to a short hover, that the demo car was remote-operated and not street legal, and that Tesla had set up a no-fly zone around the SpaceX facility.

Skeptics and the small financial stakes

The delays have drawn public ridicule. Sam Altman, the OpenAI co-founder and Musk's former friend, posted screenshots of his own reservation and refund request on X last year. "I really was excited for the car! And I understand delays," he wrote. "But 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait." Altman got his refund.

Musk himself called the car a "small potato situation" in 2023 that would not "move the needle in a major way financially." Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein expects Tesla to sell about 2,000 Roadsters a year. Tesla sold 1.6 million vehicles last year.

Goldstein still sees value in the car. "Tesla does not currently have a halo car, or high-performance luxury vehicle designed to showcase an automaker's best engineering and technology," he wrote in a note last month. "The Roadster will be Tesla's new halo car."

Investor Ross Gerber told Bloomberg that a high-priced car built in low volumes would not materially affect Tesla's finances.

Where Tesla is headed

The Roadster arrives as Tesla leans hard into AI. This year it stopped selling the Model S and Model X to free up space for Optimus humanoid robot production. It also launched Cybercab, a two-seat robotaxi with no steering wheel, pedals or mirrors.

A Barclays note has suggested Tesla and SpaceX could merge before year-end, possibly ahead of Tesla's annual meeting, according to Bloomberg's description of the note. Neither company has announced a deal. The Roadster is built on shared Tesla and SpaceX engineering.

The open items are concrete. Tesla has not published a final price or production targets. It has not explained how a mirrorless, thruster-equipped car gets approved for U.S. roads. Deposit holders are being asked to commit $50,000 or more for a car that, by Musk's own timeline, is still more than a year away from production.